2002 Überlingen mid-air collision
| Accident | |
|---|---|
| Date | 1 July 2002 |
| Summary | Mid-air collision |
| Site | Überlingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany 47°46′42″N 9°10′26″E / 47.77833°N 9.17389°E |
| Total fatalities | 71 |
| Total survivors | 0 |
| First aircraft | |
| RA-85816, the Tupolev Tu-154M involved in the accident seen in March 2002 | |
| Type | Tupolev-Tu-154M |
| Operator | BAL Bashkirian Airlines |
| IATA flight No. | V92937 |
| ICAO flight No. | BTC2937 |
| Call sign | BASHKIRIAN 2937 |
| Registration | RA-85816 |
| Flight origin | Domodedovo International Airport, Moscow, Russia |
| Destination | Barcelona El Prat Airport, Barcelona, Spain |
| Occupants | 69 |
| Passengers | 60 |
| Crew | 9 |
| Fatalities | 69 |
| Survivors | 0 |
| Second aircraft | |
| A9C-DHL, the Boeing 757-200F involved in the accident seen in June 2002 | |
| Type | Boeing 757-23APF |
| Operator | DHL International Aviation ME |
| IATA flight No. | ES611 |
| ICAO flight No. | DHX611 |
| Call sign | DILMUN 611 |
| Registration | A9C-DHL |
| Flight origin | Bahrain International Airport, Manama, Bahrain |
| Stopover | Orio al Serio Airport, Bergamo, Italy |
| Destination | Brussels Airport, Brussels, Belgium |
| Occupants | 2 |
| Crew | 2 |
| Fatalities | 2 |
| Survivors | 0 |
On 1 July 2002, BAL Bashkirian Airlines Flight 2937, a Tupolev Tu-154M passenger jet, and DHL International Aviation ME Flight 611, a Boeing 757-200 cargo jet, collided in mid-air over Überlingen, a southern German town on Lake Constance, near the German-Swiss border. All of the passengers and crew aboard both planes were killed, resulting in a total death toll of 71.
The official investigation by the German Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation (German: Bundesstelle für Flugunfalluntersuchung; BFU) identified the main cause of the collision to be a number of shortcomings on the part of the Swiss air traffic control (ATC) service in charge of the sector involved, as well as ambiguities in the procedures regarding the use of the traffic collision avoidance system (TCAS) on board.: 110
On 24 February 2004, Peter Nielsen, the air traffic controller on duty at the time of the collision, was murdered in an apparent act of revenge by Vitaly Kaloyev, a Russian architect whose wife and two children died in the accident.